DBA40

I know we're going to enjoy our guest speaker. He has been with us before, as I mentioned downstairs earlier, and we have a lot of people watching us and the Baird lounge down below on the, on the simulcast. He is a very popular speaker and as I said downstairs, I don't want to ruin him and Austin, Texas, but he could come and join us here at OU anytime we'd be happy to have him, we'd welcome him, is an award winning teacher and one of one of our guest today stopped me and said, My daughter is now taking courses and he's her favorite teacher. So he is, he's a remarkable teacher and storyteller and writer and certainly in admired historian. Many of you enjoyed his talk on Roosevelt and Reagan because he is, of course written FDR, Franklin D. Roosevelt, traitor to his class, which was nominated for a Pulitzer, which is an extraordinary book he wrote the first American and a core course, more recently, a biography of Reagan. And we've heard him lecture on the leadership style of the two. He is a University of Texas, pains me to say that, but he has a University of Texas faculty member about it just shows how goodie must be for us to continue to want to welcome him here. At the University of Oklahoma. He has written 25 books and his articles have appeared in publications like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and others. He's a frequent guest on national radio and television. I've had the experience of two or three times driving down the road and suddenly I recognize a voice on the radio. And it is his. And the interviews are always highly interesting and very educational and provocative. I must say. His writings have been published in several countries, translated into German and French and Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. And he's going to speak to us today about Woodrow Wilson. He has written a biography of Woodrow Wilson. So he's going to talk to us about whether or not we're all will sodiums, whether we know it or not. So HW brands is our speaker today, please welcome. Thank you, President born for that kind introduction. I am delighted to be back. I cherish the opportunity to speak to audiences like this. I just want to say that the teachings that the University of Oklahoma has been producing for the last five years. I wanted to greatest things going in higher education in America. This, this kind of thing does not happen. And the opportunity to speak to interested people who presumably most of you have an OU connection, but people who could be doing lots of other things today, but have chosen to come here and to listen to me and my colleagues today speak. It's it's quite honor I speak at the university. I teach at the University of Texas. And I in fact have a class that's not quite as big as this. But I know perfectly well that if my students weren't gonna be examined on the material and if I weren't holding them responsible, they wouldn't all be there every day. So you didn't have to come but you did. So I'm very flattered that you did. I'm going to talk about Woodrow Wilson, but more broadly, I'm going to talk about a question that I'm posing to my students. The last 20 years or so, pretty much as long. It's not quite as long as I've been teaching history. But it's a question that relates very much to what the day's subject is and the quest, the very basic question is, why is there war? Why do nations go to war? Why do individuals go to war? And this is, one of the things I point out to my students is that this is, these are actually two separate but related questions. Why do nations go to war? Why do individuals go to war? And we heard this morning sort of the, the spontaneous, what should we call it, spontaneous injection of religion into war. And that sort of explains partly why individuals go to or even after the cost of World War One became obviously so horrendous. Why did people still go in? And that's a separate question and of course related to why did the governments make the decisions they made? Now Woodrow Wilson is going to be my case study here because the, I guess the title of my talk is RA will sentience whether we like it or not. And I may get around to the sort of whether we like it or not in the question area. Because some of you will know that Woodrow Wilson is not getting a whole lot of love these days. He's become a controversial figure, much more controversial than he has been in the past. For releases relate nothing to do with World War one. But perhaps I'll get to that. But the, or the alternative, the alternative title might have been the education of Woodrow Wilson, but it's also the education of a whole generation of Americans. And it's an education that takes place quite quickly under the duress of the First World War. And it's an education that tells us a lot about American decision-making. That tells us about how it is we choose presidents, which is matter of continuing interest. Sort of requirements we expect of the people who are going to occupy the highest office in the land. So I will begin by saying a little bit about Woodrow Wilson and how he became president. Because, well, sort of the, the essence of this part of my talk is that when Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912, matters of foreign policy, policy figured almost not at all in the campaign. Neither Wilson nor William Howard Taft and come at President nor Theodore Roosevelt, the progressive challenger, spent appreciable time speaking about foreign affairs. And one of the reasons there are two reasons that they did. One is that the United States had a long tradition of isolationism. The idea that what happens in Europe ought to stay in Europe and what happens in other parts of the world. Lot of stay there as well. The United States had made partial exceptions on a few occasions, allowing that American interests might extend in the Western Hemisphere. But as late as 1912, most Americans took comfort from a sentiment that had been expressed by a French diplomat during the 19th century. And the sentiment was that the United States is uniquely blessed among the nations in that it has to its North, Canada, a weak country. It has to its south, Mexico, a weak country. It has to its west fish and to its east fish. And so Americans during the 19th century could indulge in what they conceived of as this glorious separation from the muddy affairs of the old world. And therefore, presidents were not expected and candidates for president were not expected by and large to talk about Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs might mean, well, the tariff, which is sort of an aspect of foreign affairs. But they weren't talking about engagement with foreign countries on a regular basis. And they certainly were not talking about engagement in the conflict of foreign countries. So that was, that was part of the reason. The other reason was, and this would apply to the Europeans as well. It had been a long time since there was a really big war. And one of the, one of the points I make to my students is I ask them the question, I'll ask you the question. And because as you'll see, this question is partly a historical question, but it's also a question of psychology and sociology. And the question is, this is the default setting of humanity, war or peace. And one of the things I point out to my students is it sort of depends on who you ask the question up And when you pose the question. So for example, Americans, especially that many people in Europe in let's say 920, just to pick the year in which Woodrow Wilson was elected. Could look back on the previous century and say, it's been a pretty peaceful century. No big wars like that, sort of what 7000 year conflict between England and France. The starts with the Norman Conquest. And then you'll finally ends the end of the Napoleonic Wars and then drops fairly quiet. The big war of the 19th century was America's Civil War. But American Civic. Okay, that was our own affair. And we solve that one. So many people, not only in the United States, could look out on the world and 112 and say, you know, I think we have solved the problem of war. And, uh, and many of you will know that there was a whole philosophy of the fact that war had become irrelevant. And that the nations of the world, nations of Europe, are too closely tied to one another. Economically, war simply no longer made sense. Maybe at one time in the past it did, but it no longer did. And so war came as well. The war in Europe came as a surprise to a lot of people in the United States. It certainly came as a shock to people in Europe. But it meant that when Americans went to the polls in 1912, they didn't ask anything about the foreign policy experience or positions of American candidates. They also elected a candidate who would not have been elected had the Republican Party not split into, in American history, the period from the beginning of the Civil War, from the election of 1860 to the 860 until the election of 1932, was a Republican era in politics. And Republicans dominated the White House, with the exception of Grover Cleveland, the 180, and Woodrow Wilson, who was elected by virtue of the split in the Republican Party. Now it's important to keep this in mind because Wilson is, he realizes that he's in the White House sort of on sufferance. If the Republicans get back together, if he really screws up, then he might lose the White House. So he's going to have to tread carefully. So this is the background. On the eve of his inauguration as president, Wilson stepped aside with a journalist and he made what seemed like an offhand comment. And the comment was. As Wilson speaking, he said, it would be an irony of fate if foreign policy played a large role in my presidential administration. Well, so the irony quickly jumped up and bidet, Europe went to war in 1914. And Wilson's immediate position was one that was embraced by nearly everybody in the United States. Europe is going insane. And we are all very glad that we are no longer there. Proportion of Americans who were of foreign birth or second-generation immigrants was higher in 19131914 than it had ever been before. And a great majority of Americans either had personal ties to one of the belligerents in Europe, or they had sort of secondary ties. And most of them congratulated themselves on their wisdom or their predecessors, their ancestors wisdom in getting out of that place while they were still time. Wilson, follow the example of George Washington, an extra constitutional example. But nonetheless, one that It's good enough for George Washington. It's good enough for Woodrow Wilson to declare, to proclaim neutrality. The Constitution says that Congress can declare war. It doesn't say who can declare neutrality. And so Washington took on that power himself and the wars of the French Revolution, and Wilson followed suit. Wilson did Washington one better, though. Wilson asked Americans to be neutral, not simply indeed, but in thought as well. Don't even root for one side or the other. Now this was typical. Woodrow Wilson who was a combination of a really canny politician and a person who had, who had some, I guess, exaggerated notions of his ability to persuade people. Wilson was one who, he was the president, who broke the longstanding practice of what we now think of the State of the Union address. It wasn't an address at all during the 19th century from 8800 until 1913, President's did not address Congress. The separation of the branches extended to that. And so the, the State of the Union Address was not an address at all. There's a written message. Wilson was so persuaded of his own rhetorical skills. He said, I'm going up to Congress to speak to them and they will not be able to resist me. In fact, he was probably, to my way of thinking, he was the most eloquent speaker ever to occupy the White House. And when I was writing my book on Wilson, I really had to reign myself in to stop quoting Wilson at such length because his words conveyed such power. And in fact, they did persuade Congress to do his bidding during his first term. And he got his basically as entire domestic agenda passed in the first 12 months of his presidency. Then comes World War One. And that pretty much grinds to a halt when I say the irony of fate descends on Wilson and he has to turn his attention to foreign affairs. But he says the United States will remain neutral and we will do our best not to get involved. But he discovered something that he was only vaguely aware of and that many Americans didn't sufficiently appreciate that by 1914, it was impossible for the United States not, I shouldn't say not to get involved. They already were involved in the affairs of Europe and much of the rest of the world. And this became clear fairly early in the war. There was one theory of modern warfare that said, okay, if we think that wars are anachronistic anyway, but if a war should break out, it will be short. And the reason it will be short is that modern war is so expensive. And the nations, the belligerents, will simply run out of money and they won't be able to continue fighting because they've run out of money. This particular theory failed because it did not take account of the possibility that the nation in the world with the deepest pockets might be on the sidelines and might be a source of funding for the war. So within months of the outbreak of war, representatives from the belligerent governments, first the French and the British. Eventually the Germans came to the United States and decided that they were going to raise money in the United States, are going to sell war bonds in the United States. And they went to JP Morgan. The, at this point, JP Morgan himself is dead, but the house immortal. And they say, We want you to floats and bonds for us. And the Morgan banker said, You know, we think we ought to check with President Wilson to see if this violates any aspect of policy or the law. So they check, and it sets off a bitter debate within the Wilson administration. Should we allow the belligerents to raise money in the United States? Now, it's worth noting that they weren't asking for US government support. They were simply asking for the right to sell bonds so that ordinary people, private institutions could buy the bonds are not. And the debate was over the question of whether this would violate American neutrality. If the French can sell bonds on the New York bond market. Does that mean that the United States has tilted in the direction of the French? Wilson was still intent that the United States would remain neutral. He didn't want to take a position on who was responsible for the war. He simply wanted to stay out of it and about the war. But a couple of things we're pointed out to him. Number 1 was that it was unclear whether the federal government have the authority to prevent the bonds from being soul. The Morgan people were doing this more or less as a courtesy. And so it might create some objection if he said no. The second thing was that World War One was really good business for the United States. The American economy had been in recession when Wilson became president. As soon as Europe went to war, all the stuff that American farmers produce, that American manufacturers produce was in great demand. It drove prices up. Recession disappeared, the economy was humming. And it was pointed out to President Wilson, this is 941. Mr. President, you are going to be running for re-election in two years. It would enhance your chances of re-election if the economy were thriving. If you say no to the bonds, then the people who are buying all these American goods are going to stop buying American goods. Now, Woodrow Wilson was one who could infuriate the people who knew him by his ability to switch between being a canny politician and being one who believes that he had a direct line to heaven. He was originally, I was saying there's Origen, but he was a firm predestined area and he believed that God had a plan for the world and all the individuals in the world. And so upon his election, this is after the election of 1912, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee came to the president elect and he said, Mr. President, governor. Governor. There are a whole lot of people who worked hard for your election and politics being what it is, they will expect some recognition. Who's basically saying you need to find jobs for these folks. And Wilson said, no human being could have prevented my election. God ordained that I would be the President of the United States. I owe these people nothing. Well, how do you deal with something like that? And the chairman of the Democratic National Committee didn't know exactly how sincere Wilson was in saying this. Was this just a very convenient way of putting him off or did he actually believe it? And Wilson is one of those individuals for whom it's really hard to tell at times. Anyway, Wilson makes a decision that the belligerent governments will not initially be allowed to float bonds. They won't be able to make unrestricted loans. But here's what we will do for them. They can get credits toward the purchase of American goods. So it's sort of the next best thing. Despite the fact that Wilson's Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan issued a warning. And he said, Don't do it, Mr. President, he said that that money is the worst contraband of all because it commands everything else. Wilson, however, was not persuaded by that argument. He was persuaded by the argument that, Let's see, I guess we need it for the health of the American economy 0. But here's what we'll do. We will maintain our neutrality by making sure that whatever

H.W. Brands: “We’re All Wilsonians, Whether We Like It or Not”

terms the French government can borrow money on are open to the German government, to all the belligerents. And there you see, we're still neutral. Now, this reflected on Wilson's part either a failure to understand the nature of international finance or an unwillingness to acknowledge the fact that the existing financial ties between the British and the French on the one hand, and American bankers were a much firmer and deeper than the ties. One of the belligerents on the other side, the Germans, the Austrians and certainly the Ottomans. The result of this was that although there was this policy that was neutral on its face, it greatly favored the allies and buy as much as ten to one. The United States sent money again, this is initially just private money, money to the British and the French, and very little money to the Germans and the Austrians. So the policy is still nominally neutral, but now the finances of the war tilt in favor of the British and the French. And Wilson is beginning to see this. He also recognizes, he's forced to recognize. That Americans are involved in this war. Even aside from the financial aspects, Americans have a long history of wanting to trade with every country on earth. The United States has been a commercial nation from the 1890s. This is how it got tangled up in the wars of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, which gave rise to the American War of 1812 against Britain and Americans took the position that a neutral country had neutral trading rights. And just because the British were at war with the Germans, that shouldn't prevent Americans from trading with Germany. And likewise, it shouldn't prevent Americans are trading with Britain and France. And so the United States had developed this policy of defending neutral trading rights. And they had to deal with the infractions, the violations of what americans perceived as their neutral rights by the different parties. It was difficult to be neutral though in the face of these violations, because where the British would violate America's neutral rights are the rights that Americans consider to be their neutral rights by the rather relatively gentlemanly practice of pulling a destroyer or equivalent alongside a merchant ship and saying We're taking you into port and we're going to see is your cargo. And by the way, we will pay you for the cargo and nobody's going to get hurt. The Germans because they were at a naval disadvantage to the British. They resorted to the use of submarines to sink ships. And when ships were sunk, people got killed. Sometimes the people killed included Americans. So when the Lusitania was sunk in the spring of 915, Wilson had to deal with the fact that there were a 128 Americans who were killed. So Mr. President, what does this do to your policy of neutrality? Wilson's first reaction was to say we need to embrace that policy more firmly than ever. And in fact, he said that there is such as, such a thing, as a man being too proud to fight. This didn't play very well and the press the next day, what does it mean to be too proud to fight when more than a 100 of your compatriots are dead on the ocean floor. So he decided, okay, that's not quite right. So he said, the United States needs to stand up for the rights of humanity. Until this point, Wilson had been willing to think in terms of and speak in terms of the rights of Americans. You can see a gradual broadening of Wilson's view. Now it's the rights of humanity. And he sends some stern notes to the German government that what happened with the Lusitania must not happen again. And the Germans mumble or Th1 response, but they suspend the policy at least for awhile. And Wilson believes that neutrality has been preserved. He does indeed run for president in 960. And in 1916, he campaigns on a popular platform. The campaign slogan was, He kept us out of war. Now, Wilson himself knew that there was a bit of a charade. And this because as he commented, that any German submarine captain can bring us into the war almost on a moment's notice that, yeah, he had kept us out of war. Strikingly. Wilson was one who was careful with words. He didn't say, he is going to keep us out of the war. You use the past tense. So far he's kept us out of war and he was re-elected by the thinnest margins. The Republicans had managed to get back together after this split in 1912. But nonetheless, Wilson carries the day and he's re-elected. No sooner had he been real? I can in fact, he had just been taken as second, given his second inaugural address, than the Germans announced their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Even that which meant that they no longer acknowledge anything like neutral trading rights that American ships in the designated war zone, whereas fair game as any other ships that Americans could expect to see their ship sunk, their merchant marine killed. Should Americans insist on invoking, on cysts on exercising their neutral trading rights. Even then, Wilson did not take further action. He insisted that the Germans actually kill some Americans and deliberate action. When they did. Wilson then went to Congress and asked for a declaration of war. But the declaration of war he asked for was not simply in response to these violations of international codes, these the killing of Americans. But what Wilson said was, and this is probably want, this is one of the most famous phrases uttered by any president as it relates to foreign policy. And this is where we're getting back to the top. The title of my talk that may about RA will Sonia's, what Wilson asked for was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And this became a touchstone. This was typical, Wilson. It's not a narrow view of our rights have been violated. We have to defend our ships on the high seas. We are going to defend democracy around the world. It was fortunate for Wilson that the Russian Revolution had already take the first phase. The Russian Revolution had broken out because with the Russians allied with the British and the French, as long as the czar was still in power, how could you say this is a war for democracy if you are allying with the most anachronistic despotism in Europe at the time. But the Tsar is overthrown and there's this window. It looks as though democracy might take hold in Russia as well. While the window closes. And the United States then finds itself fighting. Russia pulls out of the war. And so the United States is still fighting on the side of democracy. But Wilson is sufficiently finicky that he doesn't sign any alliance with the British and the French rather than be called another member of the allied powers. It's the Allied and associated powers. The United States has an associated power with the British and the French, and not an allied power. And this is largely in response to the Bolsheviks publication of the so-called secret treaties. The treaties that among other things, would divide up the Middle East and demonstrated that in the minds of many Americans, the British and the French, the good guys in the war had as much to answer for as the bad guys. In response to this, Wilson publishes his 14 points. So these are American war aims. These comment the beginning of 980, American troops have begun to arrive in France, but the full weight of American military power has yet to make its appearance. But Wilson has to respond to the Bolsheviks, unveiling of the dastardly intentions of the allies. And so Wilson says this, what is this war for? Well, this Fourteen Points begin with open covenants, openly arrived at no secret treaties. We don't do things that way. It included the neutral trading rights during war time. This was the proximate cause of America's entry into the war. It included self-determination of peoples. One cause of resistance in the United States to joining the war at all was the fact it seemed, it would seem to ally the United States with imperialism. And Americans were still emotionally and reflexively anti-imperialists. Despite having an empire of their own, the United States to become a formal empire with the annexation of the Philippines, 1890s, nonetheless, Americans did not, did not embrace the role. And certainly the idea of fighting on behalf of the British Empire. In fighting on behalf of the French Empire. This is something Americans didn't want to do. The last of the Fourteen Points was the most important one in Wilson's thinking. And this called for what would become the League of Nations. And here, this is the one that is going to encapsulate the will Estonian vision. If I could ask President Wilson if he were alive today, why do wars occur? Wilson was a professor of government and history. He had been a university president. He had studied the issue of governments, of the nature of communities, individuals, and the systems that govern. And he concluded that the basic reason that there was war was that in a very technical but nonetheless essential sense. The nations of the world or all outlaws one to the other. There was no law that the nations of the world would respond to. He looked at individuals in society and he cited the typical idea of the social compact. Individuals. You, you, and you, you agree to give up some of your personal autonomy to the government that you live under, to the society that you're part of. And so if you are harmed by someone, you don't get to take a gun and go out and shoot that someone on your own, you can sue them in civil court if that's appropriate. You can file criminal charges against them if that's appropriate. And Wilson, as the scholar of government, says, this is why there is war. Because when one nation is wrong by another, there is no higher Tribune tribunal to which they can take their case. All they can do is do the equivalent of pulling out a gun and start shooting. So what we need is a higher form of government. This is what the League of Nations was going to become. Wilson, the, the Americans and the allies win the war during the autumn of 1918, Wilson leads the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. For Wilson, one of the reasons that he took the United States into war. It was partly in response to the depredations on American shipping, loss of American life. But it was also because Wilson by 1917, recognize that this war was such a disaster to civilization, that extreme measures had to be taken to prevent its repetition. And he wanted to be in on the writing of the peace settlement because something really important was going to have to change in the way nations dealt with each other. And the only way the President of the United States could be guaranteed a ticket to the peace conference was sending American troops in American ships into the war. You don't get to the peace table until you've gone to the battlefield. So that's why the United States gets in the war. Wilson goes to the peace conference and he believes that the highest thing that he can get coming out of this peace conference is the league of nations. The League of Nations is what is going to prevent a repetition of this. And the idea behind the League of Nations is the concept of collective security. It's essentially that social compact among individuals within a single nation taken to the international realm where the individual actors are nations. And if nation a commits aggression on Nation, be the nation C, D, E, F, and G all the way down the alphabet. They act as the policeman, they act as the law enforcement. And because it is known that there will be this law enforcement, the nation a doesn't commit that aggression in the first place. Or maybe somebody tries it once or twice gets punished, and then it doesn't happen again. So there is going to be this world government. He would, he didn't use exactly those terms because he knew that those terms were not very well acceptable in American politics. Wilson had led the United States into the war, but he understood that the, the emotions of ISIL as isolationism had not died. So Wilson compromises a lot at the Paris Peace Conference and the British and the French get a lot more out of the peace tree then Wilson was inclined to give them in terms of reparations, war guilt clause is the whole thing. What basically happened was at the Peace Conference, the British and the French want to impose a nationalist peace on the Germans. And Wilson is looking for an internationalist peace to create this international body. He gets the British and the French to agree to the League of Nations. They're skeptical. They think that Wilson is a little bit too high-minded and they have, their nations had started the big losses. What are the Americans know about this? Wilson gets an agreement to the League of Nations. He takes it back to the United States. Now he asked to sell the deal to the US Senate and he fails. Now, well, I shouldn't say, I shouldn't give away that the, and yet he takes it back to the US Senate where he is opposed by Henry Cabot Lodge, who has decided that the will Sony and idealistic internationalism, the abandonment of the old policy of isolationism was a bad idea. Lodge, like many other observers of the Paris Peace Conference, believe that any high-minded motives with which the leaders of the victorious powers entered the peace conference had evaporated by the end, John Maynard Keynes, the British delegation storms out saying, we've written a piece that's going to lead to the next war. And Lodge and others thought the same thing and said, we want no part of it. At that point, americans begin backing away from the war. And the whole idea that the United States had been justified in going in. So Wilson undertakes a speaking tour. Wilson once again believe that his eloquence would carry the day. Now, this is one of those moments when sort of historical coincidence can mean everything. If Wilson had lives even ten years later, what's about to happen? What I'm going to explain to you is going to happen, wouldn't have happened. If Wilson could have spoken, if he could have made his case on behalf of the League of Nations to the American people. Without actually having to go to the American people, then what's going to happen might not have happened, but radio was not yet in use for this sort of thing. There was wireless telegraphy, but there wasn't anything like broadcast radio yet. So for the President, the United States, to make his case to the American people, he had to go to the American people. And Wilson undertook an exhausting speaking tour by train. He traveled from Washington up through the upper Midwest up to the Pacific Northwest data California, circling back, he spoke dozens of times. He wore himself out. In fact, he wore himself out so badly that his health failed. He had had a series of neurological incidents. He had a massive stroke, and he was incapacitated for the rest of his presidency. He was unable to continue to make the case on behalf of the League of Nations and Henry Cabot Lodge in the opponents of the league, they defeated the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles. The result of this was that Wilson left office, a broken man, physically broken. And his dream of a League of Nations, his dream of a world that would be safe for democracy seem to have evaporated. And Woodrow Wilson appeared to be a great failure. And in 19, well, the last of the Wellstone, Ian's. Probably Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson, and who was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 920, Franklin Roosevelt believed in the will Sony envision. But Roosevelt and his presidential running mate James ****, were horrendously defeated in the 1920 election. And Roosevelt properly shut up about the issue of the League of Nations about the principle of internationalism, collective security. He didn't stop believing in it, but he stopped talking about it. Roosevelt understood that the American people had not yet come around to the will Sony and view that American democracy, Democracy in America will not be safe until democracy is safe. In other parts of the world. That the United States must remain engaged with the world. Or more precisely, that the United States is engaged with the world financially. The United States is engaged with the world commercially. American merchants are still going to sell goods to the British and the French and everybody else during the 1920s and 1930s. And American bankers or silicon to float loans. But the American government must have nothing to do with that. So diplomatically, politically, there should not be these connections. Roosevelt didn't agree with that. Roosevelt believed that the United States had to have connections, but he kept his mouth shut during the 1920s, he was out of politics until 1928. At, as the isolationists mood set back in once again, he was elected president in 1932. Saying again like Wilson in 1912, almost nothing on foreign policy. It's all about the depression at home. But Roosevelt believed that Wilson had been right. And when trouble returned to Europe during the late 1930s, when trouble emerge in Asia, Roosevelt believed that the United States could not stay out. But Roosevelt had learned a lesson from Woodrow Wilson. And the lesson that Roosevelt learned was, the American people cannot be led into war. The American people have to discover on their own that a war is in the American interest. Now there were lots of people who are looking at Roosevelt and 930, 8949, when the Nazi threat was quite apparent, even after the war began in Europe in 1939, the word Ali been going on in Asia since at least 937, depending on how you count. And they're urging Roosevelt to do something, take a strong stand. You've got to do something that Roosevelt had watched. The American people had been led into war by Woodrow Wilson and 117. But by the beginning of 999, they said, this is not America's war. In fact, World War one for much of the 20s and 30s was called Mr. Wilson's War. And Roosevelt didn't want the next word we call Mr. Roosevelt's war. He wanted it to be America's war. And so Roosevelt delivered. And he delayed and he procrastinated until, until it became very apparent that this war was America's war. And that moment came at Pearl Harbor, when in the space of the two hours of the raid in Hawaii, isolationism disappeared from the American mindset. And I would go so far as to say that it has never returned. That's the moment when Americans realized, you know what? We are all will Sonia's, the American, american policies during the Cold War were based on the spirit of Wilson Indianism. Even though it's not the full, It's not the full Wilson as a half Wilson and a half Wilson is that the second version of the League of Nations is the United Nations. Not going to be this comprehensive organization that has a kind of powers that Wilson wanted because of the Cold War. And so the United States note didn't rely on the United Nations during the Cold War, but it created its own, I would say, sort of the half collective security, nato. And eventually American support for the Common Market and the EU and the World Trade Organization. Americans have been at the forefront of creating these international organizations that are going to make the nations of the world no longer outlaws to one another as they had been before Wilson came along. So this is why I say, we're all Wilson Indians today. But it's, I think appropriate to be asking a question on the 100th anniversary of this, roughly speaking. That is, will we remain real Sonia's? I pretty much run out of time. So I'm not going to say much more about this, but I'm going to make a couple of observations. One is that it is one thing for Americans to be engaged in the world. Americans are more engaged in the world than they were in 1914. And put americans are more cognizant of the engagement in the world now than they were in 114. So in some ways, the thing that Wilson discovered during World War 1, that whether he likes it or not, Americans want to trade with other countries. They want to sell bonds in other countries and all this stuff. America remains involved in the world. So in that respect, we should all continue to be well Sonia's. But there's another element. And that is this, that Wilson came along at a moment when the United States had the economic power to do pretty much whatever it wanted in world affairs. One way of looking at the period from, let's say, Wilson's presidency until the early part of the 21st century is, you could call it the era of free security in American Affairs. It is not that American defense and security Paul didn't cost any money, but it never pushed anything else aside. The United States was wealthy enough that the US could have guns and butter to, it could wage war in World War II, the biggest war in world history. And the American economy could grow at an unprecedented rate. That's a remarkable thing if you can do that, the American economy remains sorted the wonder of the world until, well, the beginning of this century. We have reached a point I think, where there's no longer free security. If President Obama should decide to escalate American role in Syria or to send more troops back into Afghanistan or Iraq. He's going to have some difficulty finding the troops. Because Americans no longer live at this moment during an era when you can have guns and butter, both Americans are going to have to decide, do you want the guns? Do you want this ambitious, I'll call it will suddenly and foreign policy. Or perhaps, do you go back to the model before Wilson when Americans chose one or the other? So I'm going to say that we're all will Sonia's today in 2016 will be will we all be well, so neon's ten years from now. I don't know. Thank you very much.